DAT Breakdown and DAT Achiever Comparison

[Amanda20003]

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Hi guys! I took my exam yesterday and I'm pretty happy with my scores!

PAT: 26
QR: 18 (eek!)
Reading: 30
Biology: 22
Gen Chem: 23
Organic: 21
TS: 22
AA: 23

I used "organic chemistry as a second language" (because I felt particularly weak in organic), 2014 Destroyer, and Achiever! Plus I watched literally every youtube "crash course" bio and chem video, they're great and I kind of watched them as a netflix replacement, like during breaks. I also had the Kaplan blue book but I found it pretty useless, to be totally honest. It was too easy for some things and too difficult to follow for the harder things. The PAT section in the kaplan book does not even resemble the real PAT, I was getting every single Kaplan PAT problem right without breaking a sweat whereas the real PAT is much more difficult. Obviously I probably should have used math destroyer or something too to bring up my sad math score but hindsight's 20-20!

I was super worried going into my exam because of the Achiever scores I got, so if you're worried too, I thought I'd post what I was getting on my achiever tests to compare:

TESTS 1-5
PAT: 17, 17, 18, 18, 17
QR: 18,16,18,18,17
Reading: 19,19,17,17,18
Bio: 17,20,16,16,17
Gen Chem: 16,16,17,17,13(!)
O Chem: 16,17,18,16,13 (!?)

I was pretty concerned about going into the test with 13's on chemistry! So I hope this makes everyone worried about achiever feel a little better! The real PAT is easier on keyholes, tfe, and angles than achiever, but I thought the pattern folding was much harder (maybe because I was pressed for time) and the hole punching seemed sort of harder too. Reading was much easier on the real test than achiever, I think I finished reading with like 40 minutes to spare or something crazy. I probably got lucky with easy passages! Math I thought was pretty hard compared to achiever, my calculator worked fine on the real test which was nice but I felt like the questions I got on the real test were similar to the hardest ones from the practice tests. I should have worked more on trig and estimating!

ALSO: if you're using achiever and relying on the highlighting during the reading section and the ability to cross out answers on the screen, my test did NOT have those features, fyi.

Good luck!!

 

[DAT Destroyer]

Hi guys! I took my exam yesterday and I'm pretty happy with my scores!

PAT: 26
QR: 18 (eek!)
Reading: 30
Biology: 22
Gen Chem: 23
Organic: 21
TS: 22
AA: 23

I used "organic chemistry as a second language" (because I felt particularly weak in organic), 2014 Destroyer, and Achiever! Plus I watched literally every youtube "crash course" bio and chem video, they're great and I kind of watched them as a netflix replacement, like during breaks. I also had the Kaplan blue book but I found it pretty useless, to be totally honest. It was too easy for some things and too difficult to follow for the harder things. The PAT section in the kaplan book does not even resemble the real PAT, I was getting every single Kaplan PAT problem right without breaking a sweat whereas the real PAT is much more difficult. Obviously I probably should have used math destroyer or something too to bring up my sad math score but hindsight's 20-20!

I was super worried going into my exam because of the Achiever scores I got, so if you're worried too, I thought I'd post what I was getting on my achiever tests to compare:

TESTS 1-5
PAT: 17, 17, 18, 18, 17
QR: 18,16,18,18,17
Reading: 19,19,17,17,18
Bio: 17,20,16,16,17
Gen Chem: 16,16,17,17,13(!)
O Chem: 16,17,18,16,13 (!?)

I was pretty concerned about going into the test with 13's on chemistry! So I hope this makes everyone worried about achiever feel a little better! The real PAT is easier on keyholes, tfe, and angles than achiever, but I thought the pattern folding was much harder (maybe because I was pressed for time) and the hole punching seemed sort of harder too. Reading was much easier on the real test than achiever, the passages I got were like maybe high school reading level, not hard at all I thought. I think I finished reading with like 40 minutes to spare or something crazy. I probably got lucky with easy passages! Math I thought was pretty hard compared to achiever, my calculator worked fine on the real test which was nice but I felt like the questions I got on the real test were similar to the hardest ones from the practice tests. I should have worked more on trig and estimating!

ALSO: if you're using achiever and relying on the highlighting during the reading section and the ability to cross out answers on the screen, my test did NOT have those features, fyi.

Good luck!!

Congratulations! Great job!!! Wow, 30 in reading, that is rare indeed, could you please share with the SDN community your plan of attack for this section. I would not worry at all about your QR score, your other scores more than compensated!!

Good luck in your journey to becoming a dentist!

Dr. Romano and Nancy

 

[510586]

Wow great scores. I think this is the first time I saw a 30 on reading. What was your strategy for that section, and how did you practice it?

 

[Amanda20003]

Dr. Romano: Thanks for destroyer, there were at least 3 or 4 questions on the exam that were nearly word-for-word the same as a few in the 2014 edition! Your book was so helpful 🙂

As far as reading goes, I'm not sure I really had a strategy... combination of many years of reading and pure luck? Mainly I very quickly skimmed the passages before looking at the questions, tried my best to keep track of the main idea of each paragraph, then moved on to the questions. I skimmed for key words from the questions in a "search and destroy" kind of way, but it worked better because I had read it before so I didn't fall into misleading answers. For example they like to ask questions like "what year did this thing happen" and then the passage says "this thing happened 2 decades after the other thing happened" and then you have to find the date for the other thing; I can see how these questions would be easy to miss if you're just skimming looking for a date without skimming first.
I literally only used Achiever to practice for reading, it was my least practiced section. I think those 5 Achiever practice tests were the perfect amount of practice, and they were way too hard so it made the real test feel like a breeze. Although I do have a research background so I've become pretty good at reading dense passages and making sense of them that way.

 

[khadcheemz]

How was math compared to achiever? I suck at math. The reading passages on Achiever are horrible! I took a Kaplan test and got a 20 on that and then a 15 on Achiever.... I think Achiever asks too many detailed questions

 

[khadcheemz]

I remember the math is somewhat comparable to the actual one, with rest of other sections especially reading and perceptual really intimidating. The general consensus is that Achiever is there to prepare you for the worst you could face on the DAT. A 15 on its reading is okay but I would strive to get higher scores maybe like 17 or 18 just to be sure it will be in the 20s when come the real deal.

Thanks!